NIST physicists have achieved the coldest temperature ever recorded for matter, cooling cesium atoms to 700 nanokelvins (700 billionths of a degree above absolute zero). This was accomplished using lasers to trap the atoms in an optical lattice, a regular array of microscopic hills and valleys. The atoms reached temperatures close to 1 microkelvin, with a typical velocity of only 7 millimeters per second. The NIST team, led by William Phillips, is now working to apply this discovery in improved atomic clocks.
Source: https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/1994/08/nist-physicists-measure-coldest-temperature-ever
Keywords: Laser Cooling, Optical Lattice, Atomic Temperature, Cesium Atoms, Absolute Zero
